Maliwawa Figures: A Rock Art Style Like No Other
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 19, 2021
Western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, has a remarkable range and number of rock art sites, rivalling that of Europe, southern Africa and ...
The Disease That Turns Muscles Into Bones
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 18, 2021
Behind a glass enclosure at the Mutter Museum of The College of Physicians in Philadelphia is a terrifying exhibit—two human skeletons. Thei...
Guarapari’s Radioactive Beaches
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 17, 2021
About 50 km south of Vitória, the state capital of EspÃrito Santo, in southeastern Brazil, lies the coastal town of Guarapari, a popular tou...
Heroic War Pigeons
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 16, 2021
World War One, and to some extent, the Second World War, was a strange blend of archaic and modern technology. The First World War, in parti...
When California Was Thought To Be An Island
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 15, 2021
If California were a country its economy would be the fifth largest in the world. Yet the tech boom is not the starkest way California has e...
How a Failed Dam Legalized Marrying The Dead
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 12, 2021
Sitting low among the hills, just north of the city of Frejus, in southern France, not far from the French Riviera coast, are the broken rem...
The Octagon Houses of Orson Fowler
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 10, 2021
Orson Fowler wanted to design the best house, but he detested the traditional boxy shapes. Too many right angles, he thought. In his mind, t...
Conrad Haas: The 16th Century Rocket Pioneer
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 9, 2021
In 1961, a professor at the University of Bucharest, made a surprising discovery in the archives of the city of Sibiu, in Romania. It was a ...
Dazzle Camouflage: Hiding in Plain Sight
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 5, 2021
Unlike a submarine that can lurk beneath the waves, or an artillery tank that can camouflage itself among trees and the surrounding terrain,...
Pisonia: The Tree That Kills Birds
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 4, 2021
An overwhelming majority of plants depend upon birds and insects for seed dispersal. Plants attract pollinators by releasing aromatic compou...
The Lakeview Gusher: The Mother of Oil Spills
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 3, 2021
In the early days of oil drilling, when tools were basic and technology was lacking, every new oil well sunk into the ground ran the risk of...
The Pumps That Keep Germany Dry
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 1, 2021
The Ruhr valley in North Rhine-Westphalia was once Germany’s industrial heartland producing coal and steel, the two very essential raw mater...
Boot Scrapers
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 1, 2021
In the days before automobiles, when streets were meant for horses and their carts mostly, walking through mud and excrement was an unavoida...
Hitler’s Monster Railway
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 27, 2021
Hitler’s megalomaniac plans for Germany included a monumental new railway. This railway was supposed to connect the most important cities i...
The Great Smog of 1952
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 24, 2021
Londoners are no stranger to the cold, but on the morning of December 5, 1952, the sting of winter was felt worse than ever. The cold had th...
Johann Josef Loschmidt And Avogadro’s Number
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 22, 2021
Johann Josef Loschmidt is a name that might not ring many bells, yet everyone who took chemistry in junior college had surely come across Lo...
The Mad World of Hat Making
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 19, 2021
Hat-making in the 18th and 19th centuries was a hazardous business, because it involved the use of many chemicals, one of which was the toxi...
The Ingenuity of The ‘Ha-Ha’
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 17, 2021
What’s in a wall but a simple structure to keep intruders out, you might say. But a surprising amount of thought goes behind the constructio...
Flettner Rotor: Sailing Ships Without Sails
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 16, 2021
In 1926, a 2,000-ton steel-hulled schooner named Buckau made an extraordinary crossing across the Atlantic. Although the Buckau was techni...
Citizens! During Shelling This Side of The Street is The Most Dangerous
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 15, 2021
The city of Saint Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities in Russia and in eastern Europe, with a great ensemble of historic building...
